Chinese Investors Get Picky Over U.S. Visa-for-Cash Deal

STOWE, Vt.—Johannes von Trapp, a scion of the family depicted in "The Sound of Music," has spent the past year and a half trying to lure foreigners to invest in his ski lodge and brewery here in northern New England, dangling the possibility of U.S. visas as part of the deal.

He has flown to China three times and made his pitch to hundreds of the nation's wealthy. He has regularly invoked the story of his parents' escape from Nazi-occupied Austria and the resulting movie, which became a favorite in China decades...